A query for the Bay State’s high-earners consuming deeply from the general public nicely: what precisely do you do to earn your lofty, taxpayer-funded salaries?
Because the Herald does its yearly deep dive into the Massachusetts payroll database, the paychecks of these working for public establishments is jarring. Particularly when so many who pay these salaries are scuffling with affordability throughout the board.
The College of Massachusetts system accounted for the highest 10 highest-paid state workers, with administration and athletics personnel making up nearly all of positions.
UMass Amherst Males’s Basketball Coach Frank Martin took the highest spot, with $2,180,000 in whole take-home pay. Of that, Martin made $925,000 in different pay on prime of his $1,250,000 base wage.
Gov. Maura Healey earns $222,185. She runs a complete state. And wherever you stand on Healey’s politics and insurance policies, she is not any shirker.
Chancellor of UMass Chan Medical Faculty Dr. Michael Collins wins the silver with a complete take-home pay of $1,570,000 in 2025, which included a $1,040,000 base wage and $536,000 in different pay. Collins is the longest-serving chancellor within the historical past of the UMAss system, first being appointed in 2008 after serving for a yr in an interim capability. With that type of wage, who’d wish to depart?
The bronze medal goes to UMass Head Soccer Coach Joe Harasymiak, with a wage of $1,410,000 in 2025, together with $260,000 in different pay on prime of a base wage of $1,150,000.
There are two extra million-dollar infants at UMass, however the president isn’t one in all them. UMass President Marty Meehan introduced dwelling $879,454 in whole pay on a base pay of $735,621 and $143,833 in different pay in 2025. How frugal.
These stratospheric salaries ought to keep prime of thoughts because the governor navigates rocky fiscal waters in 2026 within the wake of President Trump’s funding cuts. Healey was planning for this as early as this summer season, signing and vetoing about $130 million from a roughly $61 billion state funds.
She additionally filed a $100 million supplemental spending invoice that may give her workplace expanded emergency budget-cutting powers.
Massachusetts regulation permits a governor to chop spending throughout emergencies solely inside the government department in the event that they decide there’s not sufficient cash to pay the state’s payments. Healey slashed $375 million in 2024 after the state missed income projections for six straight months.
Healey additionally introduced plans to increase an government department hiring freeze by means of fiscal yr 2026 and pause wage will increase for some workers below her purview.
Hiring freezes, a pause on wage will increase. What an thought, and clearly an alien idea to whoever green-lights the exorbitant payouts at UMass. We now have written earlier than concerning the Beltway Bubble, the rarified cocoon on which pols and coverage makers function in DC, lower off from the issues of extraordinary residents.
The highest-earning public workers of Massachusetts are in an identical bubble, raking in thousands and thousands whereas the state pivots to provide you with money for essential packages and initiatives.
With the highest 10 highest-paid state workers on its employees, UMass deserves an “F” for fiscal accountability.
